I know that this blog is supposed to be about Stuttgart, but the first week of our trip was spent in Koszalin, Poland. My cousin and her fiancée got married a couple days ago, and the celebrations were incredible! However, I will start at the beginning of the week:our arrival. On June 3rd, I finished up my final exams at school and mom picked me up-off we went to the airport! The flight was smooth, but after 9 hours in the air, it was nice to stretch a bit when we landed! During the eight-hour layover in Eindhoven, I came to appreciate the magical powers of coffee. I was soooooo tired and could not even form a sentence correctly, so I tried some coffee (my first cup!) and literally 2 minutes later, I felt like I'd slept for 15 hours, it was like instant liquid sleep!
Aga is my cousin who got married, and her husband's name is Kudzo. Kudzo is from Togo, and so we got to meet many people from his family. The only problem was that they all spoke French and Aga was the only one who spoke both French and Polish, so poor Aga had to translate every conversation! It's a wonder how she ate at all during meals-she was translating all the time! One of Kudzo's brothers had a new baby-Emmanuel, and my cousin from our side of the family also had a baby-Alexander. I swear, those two kids got so much attention; it was like the paparazzi was following them everywhere. Every smile or laugh was followed by countless "awwww"s, and "he's so cute!"s. It's true, they were adorable, and were both about a year and a half old, so they explored everything, and played with anything they could. Alexander's vocabulary consisted of the words "no", "umhmm", and “oh?” so it was very simple having a conversation with him. For example, if you asked, "Olo (that's the short form of Alexander), do you want to play with this toy?" or "Wow, did you see that bird over there?" You would get a smile as well as an affirmative or negative response-it was very cute :)
Ok, onto the wedding. Wow. If you have not been to a Polish wedding, that needs to change. The Poles truly know how to throw a party. I didn’t really understand most of the ceremony, as it was in Polish and French, but still, it was a beautiful traditional Polish wedding-the little church it was in was in the woods, with a view of a big lake outside that reflected the sunlight that was shining. After the rings, and the vows, and the kiss, Aga and Kudzo were walking out of the church, when Aga’s sister, Kasia, surprised them with a “different” sort of song. She has many friends who play instruments, so she organized a band and they played “All you need is love”. It turned out that Aga and Kudzo’s first dance was to the same song, and Kasia didn’t know that, so it was a very cool coincidence. Anyway, after the wedding, the party happened. At Polish weddings, everyone eats and then dances for the WHOLE night. The dance was from about 8pm until 4:30am, and it was so fun! What was really incredible was the number of nationalities there-there were people from Togo, France, Poland, the USA, Italy, and Lebanon. I have a cousin from Canada, Maria, who studied linguistics with a passion and I think that even she wouldn’t have been able to understand all of the languages spoken! But the language barrier was not a problem at all. The night was filled with all sorts of dances and dancing contests, and dancing games, and at the end of the night, everyone was so tired that even though there was light outside, no one had a problem going to bed.
Now as I’m writing this, almost all of the guests have gone, the ones left are winding down from the wedding, and it’s almost time for me to go to Stuttgart. Later today, Mom and I will go back to Gdansk, and tomorrow (Wednesday), I’ll fly!
Until then,
Tchuss!
-Ania
 |
| Ummmmmm, coffee :) |
 |
| Almost in Poland! |
 |
| The "All You Need is Love" clan! |
 |
| This was taken just after the wedding! |
 |
| The First Dance <3 |
 |
| Time to Celebrate! |
No comments:
Post a Comment